If you refuse to let them go, I will send a plague of frogs on your whole country. The word plague here — nagof — means to strike, the same root used for the tenth plague's fatal blow. God is not threatening a minor inconvenience; He is warning of a targeted strike against the Egyptian agricultural and religious system. The conditional structure — if you refuse — preserves Pharaoh's agency at every stage of the narrative. God does not remove the choice; He announces the consequence of making the wrong one. Deuteronomy 30:19 sets the same structure before Israel in the covenant: I set before you life and death, blessing and curse — choose life. The plagues are not divine bullying; they are escalating invitations to choose the one who holds life, addressed to a man who keeps choosing death.

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